Bill Smaldone History of German Social Democrats Part Two

Bill Resnick continues his interview with Historian Bill Smaldone about the German Social Democratic Party. They discuss the split within the party over World War I, the Weimar Republic period of liberal democracy, developments after WW2 when social democrats developed a strong welfare state, with cooperation of more conservative elements who wanted to stave off both communism and fascism, and the more recent attempts of some party leaders to abandon their working-class constituency for the white-collar middle class. Despite the dispersal of working communities because of factory relocations and globalization, the expectation of a strong welfare state remains in Germany today as a counterweight to neoliberalism.